A lot of sweat labor this weekend. Almost 24 hours between Friday and Sunday to paint correct and coat the car.

Everything to do the job.
Chemically and mechanically decontaminated the car before correction. This means strip wash, iron remover, and then clay barred.
I hav never seen more iron deposits on a car than this one, example below.

Iron remover doing its job.


There was a lot.
This step made a significant difference in the overall color of the car, the color job "popped" a lot more.
This step took about 6 hours including drying, jacking car up and removing wheels(iron removing them as well) and taping off to prep for correction the next day.

Found @MPW3RLee's vice grip in the process.

Start of a long day of polishing and coating.
I used a Rupes polisher with Meguiars microfiber cutting pads with Jescar correction compound for the first pass.
I then used a foam yellow pad with Sonax perfect finish to complete the process.
This is the lightest color car I've ever corrected and it's much more difficult to see where you've been, what you've done, etc. The before and after's are not nearly as dramatic as they were with my E30(that had dead paint though). I didn't take any pictures because it was really hard to show the difference, but the improvements were notable. Much more clarity and depth. Not concurs ready though, it's an almost 15 year old daily so I didn't want to spend 20 hours alone polishing this.
I followed the correction with Gtechniq CSL for the base layer, with 2 coats of Gtechniq EXO V4 including the wheels. I did this on my E30 and loved the result. Added quite a bit of gloss to the finish as well.
It probably looks the same as before, but some pictures. I also took the badges off so I could correct everything, and will probable leave them off. I like the clean look.




Some small details as well.
New wheel center caps. The existing ones had this gunk on it that I thought was some kind of road grime or hardened fluid, but I think it was actually the plastic corroding. I tried to pick it off and it removed all the finish beneath. Instead of spending $60 or whatever the going rate for real center caps is, cheapo Amazon ones it is.



Looks much better. If these fail quickly I'll just buy OEM ones. I will need to get new roundels front and back as well at some point as they are showing signs of failure but still relatively good condition.
And finally, fixing my turn signal. When I took these off months ago to polish them originally, the little metal clip on the back fell into the fender. It's been double sided taped since. Cheapo Amazon to the rescue again, but not for the turn signal itself, but for the metal clip. A new OE turn signal is almost $40, and mine is in good condition, so I bought these cheap ones just to get one of the clips.

Gross.

This is what I needed. Threw these in the garbage promptly after. I had to pretty much destroy the plastic stalk to get it out any way.
I didn't polish the front bumper because of how scuffed it is. I would like to do an M sport bumper this year, but I would also like to do a new set of headlights at the same time as you have to remove the bumper to replace the headlights. I would like to do the projector headlights as well, but I STILL have not found a definitive source of someone completing this swap except for one video that is rather vague despite every thread saying that this has been discussed ad nauseam.